In hospitals, nursing homes and like health care facilities, basins are commonly used in caring for patients for various purposes, such as for bathing, wound irrigation, shampooing, and treating selected body parts. Generally, conventional basins are open vessels for holding liquid. Some basins may be permanently affixed to a plumbing fixture in which case the patient is brought to the basin. Other basins are portable so the basins can be carried for some distance to the patient or be used In the office, in the field, in the operating room or at an emergency site.
Portable basins are particularly desirable caring for bedridden patients. It is especially difficult to clean or treat the body of a bedridden patient. Because many bedridden patients usually have some physical mobility limitation, certain body parts may require particular attention in cleaning or treating. Realizing this, portable basins are particularly desirable to isolatably clean or treat a selected part, such as the head or limbs, of the body of a person at the bedside.
However, conventional wash basins are not suitable for comfortably receiving and supporting a selected body part within the interior of the basin while concurrently supporting an associated member of that selected body part on the edge. Resting a part of the patient's body on the top edge of a conventional basin can cause discomfort to the patient, since the top edges are not generally shaped for resting or supporting a body part thereon. Moreover, the weight of the supported body part and its associated appendages can tip the basin over. Hence, there is a need for a contoured portable basin adapted to comfortably and concurrently receive and support an isolatable selected part of the body during cleansing or treating substantially within the interior of the basin and the associated appendage of that body part on its top edge.
One problem of conventional portable basins is that the liquid medium which is present in the basin becomes contaminated, soiled and unsanitary once it has been used to clean or treat a body part during such a procedure. In order to maintain the body part away from contact with this contaminated liquid during a procedure, the portable basin must be periodically manually carried to a disposal site, the unsanitary liquid removed from the basin, the basin washed or rinsed and refilled with fresh liquid. This method for maintaining a clean medium is cumbersome and possible splashing or sloshing spillage of the contents can expose the care giver to disease.
There is also a need, therefore, for a portable basin having an outlet for removing liquid contents from the basin to facilitate uninterrupted cleansing and treating of the selected body part of a patient. This would avoid the risk of exposure to the care giver from contact with unsanitary liquids and permit a substantially continuous delivery of fresh liquid medium to the body part during the procedure being performed substantially within the basin. Additionally, if the soiled washing medium is desirably removed from the basin at a controlled rate, as by a drainage system, prolonged contact of the body part with the medium used for the treatment can be avoided.
Some past attempts to provide vessels for comfortably selectively cleaning or treating parts of the body have been made. U.S. Pat. No. 3,083,376, for example, discloses the use of a multi-piece vessel for treating the trunk of the body and the use of resilient compressible cushion members to support the neck on the edge and buttocks in the interior of the basin. However, such cushion members typically are porous and multi-piece vessels have crevices. Crevices and porous materials are both undesirable for health care basins since they are conducive to the growth of germs.
There is still a need, therefore, for a portable basin for isolatably washing, cleansing or treating a selected body part, especially the head and limbs having a substantially seamless, unitary construction which can be economically produced of a material that is substantially non-toxic and non-irritating to human skin. In particular, there is still a need for a portable basin that is lightweight yet is structurally sturdy. Ideally, such a basin should also be easily handled and be usable on a bed, a table, or the like without tipping over easily.
A contoured, unitary, self stabilizing basin of the present invention overcomes the foregoing problems and meets the desired needs.